Video Tutorial: Installing GQRX and RTL-SDR on a Raspberry Pi

Over on his YouTube channel AVT Marketing has uploaded a new beginner friendly video that shows how to easily install and use GQRX on a Raspberry Pi single board Linux computer. GQRX is a Linux based general purpose SDR receiver program which is compatible with the RTL-SDR. The Raspberry Pi 3 has enough processing power run this software easily with the RTL-SDR.

The tutorial is a 2-part series, with the first video showing how to install the software from scratch. AVT shows every necessary step including installing git, cmake, build-essential, getting and installing the drivers from the Osmocom github and installing libusb. For someone very new to Linux this tutorial is a simple step by step start. The second video goes on to show how to actually use GQRX on the Raspberry Pi.

So many things were wrong with Part 1 … like the fact that he installed the software into /etc/apt/

# Start at the beginning by going home.
cd ~
# if you don’t have a Downloads directory in your home directory, create one.
[ ! -d “~/Downloads” ] && mkdir ~/Downloads
cd ~/Downloads
# Download the things rtl-sdr needs
sudo apt install git cmake build-essential libusb-1.0-0.dev
# Git rtl-sdr
git clone https://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr
cd rtl-sdr
# cmake projects are compiled from source with a build directory you must create.
mkdir build && cd build
# Run cmake for the parent directory
# with the -DINSTALL_UDEV-RULES=ON argument, we don’t need to mess with any of the udev stuff because a /etc/udev/rules.d/rtl-sdr.rules file was already created.
cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON
# In typical UNIX fasion, we compile from source using ./install.sh && make && sudo make install
# but with cmake projects, subsititute that install.sh part with cmake
# So we need to do the other two parts.
make && sudo make install
# For good measure, let’s do an ldconfig
sudo ldconfig
# Create /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl.conf without opening a text editor!
sudo bash -c “echo ‘blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu’ >/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl.conf”
# Plug in your SDR dongle and then reboot your raspberry pi
sudo reboot
rtl_test -t
# rtl_test may look like a failure, but what matters is it should find your device. If it does you should be all set.
# Download GQRX. There is a prebuilt binary for Raspberry Pi 3.
cd ~/Downloads
curl -SL https://github.com/csete/gqrx/releases/download/v2.9/gqrx-2.9-linux-armv6.tar.xz | tar xJv
# `ls gqrx-2.9-linux-armv6` if you want to see what is in the directory.
sudo apt-get install gnuradio libvolk1-bin libusb-1.0-0 gr-iqbal qt5-default libqt5svg5 libportaudio2
# You need to run volk_profile for the user that is going to use this program.
volk_profile
cd ~
# Create the ~/bin directory so you can call your program up with gqrx instead of ./gqrx
[ ! -d “~/bin” ] && mkdir ~/bin
~/bin
ln -s ~/Downloads/gqrx-2.9-linux-armv6/gqrx
# And your done.

The final result should be you can open GQRX but on your 7 inch Raspberry Pi screen it is too big! Something is missing to reduce the size of the application.

Another issue is that within a few minutes, GQRX causes your Pi’s processor to heat up (hence that red themometer icon that shows up) or could try to slurp up power (lightning bolt!)

I wonder. Is there an ncurses alternative that can be run in the command line? There might not be a waterfall or oscilloscope, but if numerical values can be used in lieu of waveforms.

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What is RTL-SDR

The RTL-SDR is an ultra cheap software defined radio based on DVB-T TV tuners with RTL2832U chips. The RTL-SDR can be used as a wide band radio scanner. It may interest ham radio enthusiasts, hardware hackers, tinkerers and anyone interested in RF.